What are you looking at? Effects of English-Spanish Bilingualism on attention to
and labeling of motion events.
Sandy Gonzalez1, Catherine Bradley1, Tatiana Barriga1, Sheila Krogh-Jespersen2 and Shannon M. Pruden1
Florida International
1
University
& University of
2
Chicago
Procedure
Background & Aims
• Spanish is a predominantly verb-framed language: verbs encode the
path of a motion event (“Ella entro a la casa”).
• English is considered to be a satellite-framed language: verbs encode
the manner of a motion event (“She ran into the house”).
• Previous research has shown that English monolinguals attend to the
manner of motion in dynamic events, while Spanish monolinguals
attend to path of motion in dynamic events (Maguire et al., 2010).
• Monolinguals also interpret novel verb labels (NVL’s) as referent to
path or manner, depending on the verb framing of their language
(Maguire et al., 2010).
• Moreover, native speakers of verb-framed languages tend to produce
more manner verbs during spontaneous narration, and native
speakers of satellite-framed languages tend to produce more path
verbs during spontaneous narration (Slobin, 2004).
• The present study seeks to elucidate:1) What English-Spanish
bilinguals attend to in dynamic motion events and 2) What path and
manner verb production looks like in English-Spanish bilinguals.
English Condition
Spanish Condition
1) Participants completed a
language proficiency
questionnaire (LEAP-Q;
Marian, Blumenfeld, &
Kaushanskaya, 2007) with
directions in English.
2) Participants were
primed in English
(listened to “Frog,
Where Are You?”
stories in English) or
received no priming.
Language
Proficiency
2) Participants were primed
in Spanish (listened to
“Frog, Where Are You?”
stories in Spanish) or
received no priming.
Language
Priming vs.
No Priming
3) Participants took part in
a NVL eye-tracking
procedure using a Tobii X60
eye-tracker. Preferential
Looking Paradigm used at
test.
1) Participants completed
a language proficiency
questionnaire (LEAP-Q;
Marian, Blumenfeld, &
Kaushanskaya, 2007)
with directions in
Spanish.
NVL EyeTracking Test
3) Participants took
part in a novel verb
eye-tracking procedure
using a Tobii X60 eyetracker. Preferential
Looking Paradigm used
at test.
Participants
• 83 English-Spanish bilingual undergraduates (57 females, M age= 22,77
SD=6.269). Spanish was the native language of 79.5% of our sample.
English was the dominant language for 69.9% of our sample.
• 31 participants (20 female) took part in the English condition of the
Spontaneous Narration Task.
Novel Verb Eye-tracking Procedure
1) Introduction Phase
2) Familiarization Phase
Intro to stimuli (12s).
Path & Manner simultaneously + Novel verb label (12s).
4) Participants
were asked to
narrate the
illustrated events of
“Frog Where Are
You?” and “Frog
Goes To Dinner”
(Mayer, 1969;1974)
in English.
Results & Discussion
0.85
English Priming
Spanish Priming
English No Priming
Spanish No Priming
3a) Test Trial 1
Familiar path, novel manner
Figure 2: Novel Verb: “Blicking” or “Gupiando”
Path: Around the green ball
Manner: Spinning
3) Test Phases
(12s each)
Familiar manner, novel path
Figure 3. “Let’s look for blicking… Can you point
to Starry blicking?”
0.65
0.55
0.45
0.35
3b) Test Trial 2
Familiar path, novel manner Familiar manner, novel path
Figure 4. “Let’s look for glorping. Glorping. Can you
point to Starry glorping?”
3c) Test Trial 3
Familiar path, novel manner
Proportion of Looking to Manner (PLM)
0.75
Figure 1. “Look, it’s my friend Starry.
Do you see Starry?...”
4) Participants were
asked to narrate the
illustrated events of “Frog
Where Are You?” and
“Frog Goes To Dinner”
(Mayer, 1969;1974) in
Spanish.
Spontaneous
Narration
Task
Familiar manner, novel path
Figure 5. “Let’s look for blicking. Blicking. Let’s find
Starry blicking.”
Figures 1 - 5 from Maguire et al., 2010.
0.25
"Where is Starry blicking?"
Test Trial 1
"Where is Starry glorping?"
Test Trial 2
"Where is Starry blicking?"
Test Trial 3
• Preliminary analyses revealed no
main effects of age of English
acquisition nor language dominance
on participants’ PLM scores.
• A repeated-measures ANOVA, with
trial type as a within-subjects
variable (Test Trial 1, Test Trial 2,
Test Trial 3), and language condition
(English, Spanish) and priming
(Priming, No Priming) as between
subjects variables, revealed a
significant quadratic trend of trial
type (Test Trial 1, Test Trial 2, Test
Trial 3): F(1,80) = 28.55, p < .001.
• Pearson correlation revealed a
trend towards a significant relation
between participants’ age of English
acquisition and the proportion of
manner verbs they produced in the
spontaneous narration task, r = -.33,
p = .065 (N = 33; narratives that
have been transcribed and coded).
• Future analyses will relate participant performance in NVL Eye-tracking Task to their
performance in Spontaneous Narration Task.
• Research on the cognitive implications of bilingualism throughout the life span is
important towards building a comprehensive theory of language development.
Acknowledgements
References
This research was supported by a generous grant from The Ware Foundation, to
Dr. Shannon Pruden and The Project on Language and Spatial Development
(PLSD). For more information about The Ware Foundation, please visit
www.warefoundation.org and for more information about the PLSD lab visit
http://plsd.fiu.edu
• Maguire, M. J., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R. M., Imai, M., Haryu, E., Vanegas, S., . . . Sanchez-Davis, B. (2010). A developmental
shift from similar to language-specific strategies in verb acquisition: A comparison of english, spanish, and japanese. Cognition,
114(3), 299-319.
• Mayer M. (1969). Frog, where are you? New York: Dial Books for Young Readers.
• Mayer M. (1974). Frog Goes To Dinner. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers..
• Slobin, D.I. (2004). The many ways to search for a frog: Linguistic typology and the expression of motion events. In S. Strömqvist & L.
Verhoeven (Eds.), Relating events in narrative: Typological and contextual perspectives (pp. 219–257). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates.
For additional information about this research, please contact: Sandy Gonzalez, Project on Language and Spatial Development, Florida International University, Department of Psychology, 11200 SW
8th St, DM248, Miami, FL 33199; email: [email protected]